CITY OF BOSTON.

In Board of Aldermen, December 27, 1869. UNDER an order of the City Council, passed the 22nd of January, 1869, the Joint Standing Committee on Ordinances have prepared and printed the accompanying volume of laws and ordinances; and they would respectfully recommend the passage of the ordinance and order appended, declaring the revised ordinances contained in this volume to be the ordinances of the city, and the rules and orders contained therein to be the rules and orders of the Board. of Aldermen.

The general plan upon which the work has been prepared is substantially the same as was adopted in the edition of 1850, and followed in the editions of 1856 and 1863. It contains (1) a digest of all the special statutes relating to the City of Boston, and such general statutes as were considered of municipal interest, arranged, as far as practicable, in alphabetical order; (2) the revised ordinances of the city council; (3) the revised rules and orders of the Board of Aldermen; (4) historical notes and copious references to judicial decisions.

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The committee have endeavored to make the work as complete, in all respects, as possible. The several heads of departments, who possessed a practical knowledge of the operations of the ordinances under which their departments are organized, were requested to suggest such amendments as seemed to them desirable. In response to that request numerous modifications were proposed, some of them highly important; and, after a careful scrutiny by this committee, such of them as were approved were recommended for adoption by the City Government. No substantial alteration has been made without the express sanction of the City Council. The work of preparing the digest of the statutes and revised ordinances was placed in the hands of John P. Healy, City Solicitor, Samuel F. McCleary, City Clerk, and James M. Bugbee, Clerk of Committees, who were considered best qualified for the task from long familiarity with the subject-matter. With the approval of the committee they have made some changes in the arrangement of topics, and in the style of printing, which will be found an improvement on previous editions. The State legislation on the subject of street railways in this city, and the orders of the Board of Aldermen granting locations, had come to occupy so much space more than two hundred and fifty pages. that it was considered best to print all the matters relating to that subject in a separate volume. The City Clerk has accordingly prepared and printed a collection of all the general and special statutes under which the several street railway corporations having locations in Boston are organ

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ized and operated, with the orders of the Board of Aldermen thereon.

The committee would recommend that, at the beginning of every year hereafter, the statutes relating to the city, the ordinances, and the orders of a permanent character, passed during the previous year, be collected and printed in the same form as the present edition, with indexes in each, extending back to the year 1869, and the pages numbered continuously to facilitate references.

JOHN T. BRADLEE,

MOSES FAIRBANKS,

NEWTON TALBOT,

FRANCIS A. OSBORN,

GEORGE P. DENNY,

FRANCIS W. JACOBS,

MELVILLE E. INGALLS,

GILES H. RICH,

Committee on Ordinances.